May 1, 2011 1 Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-

31 “Peace and Forgiveness”

“One day in 1992, an eighty-year-old woman was mugged and badly hurt in New York City. Eileen
Egan, however, was not your typical mugging victim. She was a lifetime peace activist, a coworker of
Dorothy Day and Mother Teresa, who naturally saw things a little differently than most people. A
good writer, she was also able to articulate her vision, for example, in a pithy interview in Parade
magazine 2 years after the attack, called ‘I Refuse To Live In Fear.’ . . . She started from the
assumption... that the worst result of the attack was not her broken hip and ribs but the potential
‘broken-ness’ of her feelings toward the man who attacked her. Egan was extremely concerned not to
let that happen. Instead of letting herself get vindictive, she tried to make friends with her attacker,
staying in touch with him as he wended his way through the prison system, and she describes how it
helped her avoid the ‘posttraumatic stress’ that might have followed such a brutal attack. Note that so
far he doesn’t seem much affected by her generosity; but that doesn’t prevent her from benefitting
from it. She explains, ‘I’ve forgotten about the attack completely. I used to get nervous when
somebody came up behind me, but that’s gone now. There are so many more important things to
worry about in the world.’”1 Egan forgave her attacker, and by forgiving the man, she was able to find
peace in her life, or probably better, she was able to retain the peace in her life she already had. She
wasn’t controlled by fear or anger or hatred as many are in similar situations. She was able to find
peace by forgiving.
I wonder how many of us do that – find peace by forgiving. Probably not many of us. More of us end
up living in fear or filled with anger. M. Craig Barnes tells of moving into a new apartment with his
family when he was in grad school in South Chicago. He writes, “When we saw that the door of the
apartment had four locks, we wondered why we needed so many. I soon discovered that the benefit
was mostly emotional. When we got inside at night, after being worried about whatever, we could
shut the door on the world and turn lots of little levers. ‘Click, click, click, click.’”
Barnes continues, “I think of that door when I’m listening to people describe how they cope with their
fears. They’re keeping their hearts behind a door with lots of locks because something out there
makes them afraid. If someone tries to get in before they’re invited, especially if that heart has been
hurt before, they will hear the ‘click’ of the lock.”2
Trouble is, when we lock things out, we also lock ourselves in. I’ve heard of many people living in
apartments in big cities so afraid of being robbed or being attacked in their apartments that besides
locks on the doors, they’ve put big bars on their windows. While they’re much safer that way I
suppose, clearly they’re living in cells – cells of their own making, but cells nonetheless. They’re
living in physical cells, and they’re living in emotional cells, cells built by their fear. They want peace
and security in their lives, but I’m afraid they don’t find that peace. Again and again, I’ve heard of
people living in those conditions who’ve been unable to escape their apartments that have caught on
fire because the bars on their windows blocked their exit. In a similar vain, far too many elderly die of

1
1. Nagler, Michael N., Is There No Other Way? The Search For A Nonviolent Future,
Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, CA, 2001. pp. 81-82.

2
2. Barnes, M. Craig, “Crying shame,” The Christian Century, April 6, 2004, p. 19.

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heat stroke during summer heat waves because they’re afraid to open their windows to get what little
cooling breeze there may be. Their fear literally ends up being the cause of their death.
I think it would be fair to say that the disciples, following Jesus’ crucifixion, found themselves
imprisoned by their fears. There they were, hiding in the upper room. John tells it this way. “When it
was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had
met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with
you.’” Understand here, that when John says the disciples were afraid of the Jews, he was being very
general. The disciples were afraid of the Jewish leaders, not all the Jews in Jerusalem, because they
were Jews themselves. They weren’t afraid of anti-Semitism. They were afraid of being arrested
because they were with Jesus. That’s why they were hiding. Their leader had been crucified and they
were afraid that the authorities would do the same to the inner circle of Jesus’ followers.
While they were hiding, John tells us, Jesus came and said to them, “Peace be with you.” Which is
exactly what the disciples needed wasn’t it? Peace. The disciples were filled with fear, and not only
the fear that John tells us about, the fear of the Jewish authorities. I’m sure the disciples were afraid of
what was to come. How could they not be afraid of the future? They’d given the last 3 years of their
lives to following Jesus, and now he was gone. What were they going to do now?
I would also think that the disciples weren’t only afraid, but they must’ve been angry as well – angry
with Judas, angry with Caiaphas, angry with Pilate, angry with the soldiers, probably angry with
themselves, certainly angry with Jesus. Why did Jesus have to go to Jerusalem anyway? He could’ve
stayed in the country where he had strong support and continued to preach and heal and teach while he
built his reputation and built a stronger base of followers. Maybe in a few more years, he would’ve
been strong enough to enter Jerusalem and confront the Jewish and Roman authorities, but not yet.
Why did he have to go into Jerusalem now? Surely the disciples must’ve been filled with anger at
Jesus. Coupled with their fear of the future, and their own guilt for not standing by Jesus when he was
crucified, and their grief that their beloved leader was now gone despite what the women had said, it’s
easy to see why the disciples must’ve been emotional wrecks when Jesus entered their midst. They
were imprisoned in their emotional cells and probably couldn’t see any way out. The “Peace” of Jesus
was absolutely what they needed, just like all of us need the peace of Jesus in our own lives.
John continues. “After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples
rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent
me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy
Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are
retained.’”
Wait a minute, we say. How do we move from the joyful news that we’re to receive Jesus’ peace to
this business of forgiving sins? We can understand how we can only have peace through receiving the
Holy Spirit. That makes sense to our Christian minds. We know that lot’s of times we’re so mixed up
emotionally, so filled with grief or anger or jealousy or hurt that we can never find peace on our own.
We understand we need the Holy Spirit to find peace in our lives. But what does the gift of the Holy
Spirit have to do with forgiveness? What does forgiveness have to do with peace?
Jesus answers us. Peace has everything to do with forgiveness. Have you ever tried to be around
someone with whom you’re angry? It’s difficult to be at peace with that individual until the anger is
resolved – and anger is resolved through forgiveness. Unless we forgive others, we won’t find true

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peace in our lives. What’s more, unless we ourselves are forgiven by Jesus, it’s difficult for us to
forgive others. Peace comes through forgiveness.
“The word for forgiveness in Greek can be translated ‘to free,’ or ‘to let go.’ Thus, the gospel story is
always a freedom story.”3 It’s through forgiveness that we’re set free. Only when we’re free, and
others are free, will we find peace.
So it is that Jesus gives peace, but gives peace through our forgiving others. “If we do not forgive
those who hurt us, the only alternative is to retain the sins. To retain means to hold, and to hold onto
hurt is to lock ourselves into the identity of victim. In the words of Lewis Smedes, ‘When you forgive
you set a prisoner free. And then you discover that the prisoner was you.’” 4
We have only two choices here. We either forgive, or we’re the victim. Those are the only options we
seem to have. Don’t think that we can forget about our hurt, or deny it, or store it up for later use
without becoming the victim our self. Hurt and grief and anger aren’t emotions that can be hidden for
long, especially not without great harm to the one trying to hide them. Emotions that are bottled up
eventually explode and spew everywhere, just as a Coke © that’s been shaken sprays everywhere when
it’s opened.
We may think we’re hiding our anger from the one who has injured us, but we’re only fooling
ourselves. Unless we forgive, our anger comes out in subtle, yet effective, ways. A wife who hasn’t
yet forgiven her husband for what he said at the party may “accidently” not find all the bits of egg
shell that fell in her husband’s eggs. The husband who hasn’t yet forgiven his wife for what she said
at the party may “accidently” forget to tell her that her mother wants her to call, or may “accidently”
forget to do some task his wife asked of him. Peace comes when we forgive.
“When the hurts are great, of course, it’s hard to forgive. We wonder, ‘How can I ever get to the place
of giving up such overwhelming hurt?’ But we’re not on our own for this. [As John reminds us],
Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit before he called us to forgive.” 5 We’re not left alone to forgive others, or
to ask for forgiveness ourselves. Evidently, Jesus knew how hard it is for us to forgive. Jesus knew
that we often can’t forgive without help, and so we’re given the Holy Spirit to help us forgive. What a
blessed gift the Spirit is, because “what this means is that we disciples are not called to produce
forgiveness. We’re called instead to announce to the world what has already been produced on the
cross – the peace and forgiveness which can come only from God. We’re called to open the locks and
throw open the door, and walk back into the world as a person who is unafraid. We’re called to live
like 80-year-old Eileen Egan lived following her terrible mugging, forgiving even those who do the
most vile things to us.”6 Because if we fail to forgive, we become locked in cells of our own making.
If we fail to forgive, our only alternative is to live in shrinking prisons of hurt that we have made

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3. Barnes, p. 19.

4
4. Barnes, p. 19.

5
5. Barnes, p. 19.

6
6. Barnes, p. 19.

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ourselves.
May we forgive one another and through this forgiveness find the peace that God grants to all who
believe.